Population Council Research that makes a difference

Good News: Pregnancy and Childbirth Becoming
Safer for Women Worldwide

The global number of pregnancy-related deaths has declined by 35 percent since 1980. The world is now losing fewer than 350,000 women a year due to death related to complications of pregnancy and childbirth. That is the finding of a study recently published in the respected British medical journal The Lancet.

This is, of course, very good news because it demonstrates a significant drop as compared to the prior number of 525,000 deaths a year.

The Lancet termed the drop in deaths "persistent and welcome progress." That progress shows what well-designed, well-run maternity care programs can do.

"We know that the drop in pregnancy-related deaths didn’t just happen," says John W. Townsend, vice president of the Population Council’s Reproductive Health program. "Persistent effort on many fronts, including our work and that of our partners, has saved the lives of thousands of women and babies. For decades, we have identified causes of maternal and newborn deaths, designed and evaluated improved services, and used the solid evidence we generated to help shape effective policies and programs."

Council research and service programs to improve health outcomes for pregnant women include:

• Innovative approaches being assessed in Africa and Asia to finance and improve access to high-quality maternity care;
• Programs in Mexico and Nigeria that are exploring the use of an inexpensive drug, magnesium sulfate, to treat pre-eclampsia, a potentially deadly complication of pregnancy;
• Work in Kenya and Bangladesh to develop, test, and expand programs that allow women to obtain comprehensive maternity care, in particular labor and delivery attended by skilled midwives and other skilled attendants; and
• A major initiative in 26 districts in Pakistan that is improving family planning policies and services and educating men and women about the benefits of birth spacing.

We have come far, but we must make a lot more progress: 350,000 maternal deaths per year is unacceptable, and the associated morbidity is unthinkable. The Population Council and our partners must accelerate our efforts to prevent the hundreds of thousands of unnecessary pregnancy-related deaths that occur each year.

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Hogan, Margaret C., Kyle J. Foreman, Mohsen Naghavi, Stephanie Y.  Ahn, Mengru Wang, Susanna M. Makela, Alan D. Lopez, Rafael Lozano, and Christopher J.L. Murray. 2010. "Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980—2008: A systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5," The Lancet (offsite link)

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About the Population Council
The Population Council confronts critical health and development issues—from stopping the spread of HIV to improving reproductive health and ensuring that young people lead full and productive lives. Through biomedical, social science, and public health research in 50 countries, we work with our partners to deliver solutions that lead to more effective policies, programs, and technologies that improve lives around the world. Established in 1952 and headquartered in New York, the Council is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization governed by an international board of trustees.

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